May 25th: A Newsletter

In the fifth month of Christmas...

• Letter from the Editor

• Art Piece: "A Christmas Vignette"

• Hot Chocolate Recipe

• “The Twelve Months of Christmas” Chapter Five

• Christmas Puzzle to Make You Go brrrrrr

"A Christmas Vignette"

by Lula Lollop

"The Twelve Months of Christmas"

by Kafryn Swargyn

***

Chapter Four:  FIIIIIIIVE GOOOOOOLD RIIIIIIIIINGS!

You don’t stay long in the dark room. Two unfamiliar guards appear as light spills through the door, and they prod you out onto cobblestone streets. You’re still near the gates to the city. From here, the whole town slopes upward, until it reaches the crest of a large hill. At the summit is a building, not quite a castle, but rather imposing and…festive…looking. Its belltower tolls, with a series of loud yet somehow twinkly sounds which you assume marks midday. 

Citizens part to let you through, noting the grim-faced, peppermint-stick-wielding guards on either side. Some smile, some shake their heads, some stare soullessly as you pass. All of them seem to understand why you’re here. 

The journey up the thoroughfare to the not-castle is long; your legs are tired after running from demon birds for goodness knows how many days. And you just noticed how badly your wrists are chaffing under the ropes. Ow. Eventually, though, you stumble up to a metal gate, opening into a garden courtyard. Vegetables grow in raised beds, vines crawl up and down the stone walls – if you were happier it sure would be pretty here. As you look closer, little holly berries sprout from the vines, and merry red poinsettias ring the perimeter. Good grief, pick a season, will you? This whole experience has been confusing in several ways, not least in the variety of flora. 

A staircase at the other end of the courtyard curves up to a balcony, leading into the building at the summit. The guard on the left pulls you that direction. Caroller, here I come, you mutter. Thy face I shall promptly punch. If you were to tell yourself a truthful thing for once, you’d soon accept the fact that, no, you are not about to punch anyone. Your hands are tied and you have little stomach for conflict with armed humans. Even if their weapons are candy. They’re sharp candy. Still, your anger is real. You’ll get what you can out of this brigand. 

At the top of the balcony, the glass doors stand open. You follow the slant of sunlight stretching into the hall. The room appears to span the length of the building, ending in another set of glass doors on the opposite wall. Ceilings soar high to wooden beams; stone walls feature curved niches for all manner of Christmas trees down the length of the hall. Towards the middle, a huge fireplace is built into either wall. The place looks ready for a feast of some sort – long, heavy wooden tables and benches, and such like. And at the end of the farthest table, a ridiculously large carved wooden throne. 

The guards usher you to a seat beside the throne, on one of the benches. They nod to the person in the throne, untie your hands, and leave the room. It’s just you and – the Caroller. Unarmed, it seems? Okay, maybe you could do some punching. You eye her skeptically. You’d kind of been picturing a Santa-esque character, but evil and creepy. This person is not obviously either.

She sits cross-legged in her chair, humming a cheery tune you can’t place. But’s it’s something Christmas, that’s for sure. It’s too warm here for sweaters – instead she wears an ugly holiday-colored tank-top, with little fuzzies along the hems. Ew. Categorically ew. On the table in front of her is a variety of craft supplies. At the moment, she appears to be painting wooden ornaments to look like bulbous reindeer. If you weren’t so bent on hating everything Christmas, you might be willing to admit that she’s actually quite a skilled artist. 

She glances up and smiles at you. She’s so…young. Why is that so unsettling to you? A person not that much older than you ruling over an entire city and multiple flocks of very annoying birds…

“Maybe you’re just envious of my initiative, conviction, and success,” she says. 

“Excuse me?”

“Now I shall grin to communicate that what I just said was a joke.” She grins. You squirm. She drops her paintbrush in her glass of water and waves the topic aside. “Let’s start over. Welcome to Hollyjollyjingledazzleville.”

“And you’re the Caroller everyone’s been blabbing about.”

“Mmm, yes. Some of my employees can be a bit overeager. But they’re cute little things, aren’t they?”

“Not so much.”

“Once you warm up to each other, you’ll get along just fine.”

“You’re implying that I’ll actually be seeing those birds again, and I beg to differ.”

“Oh, you can beg, but that doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.”

“Funny, that sounds rather like something a demonic partridge said to me once.”

She cocks her head, then chuckles. “Yeah, Sigfried is a character.”

“Okay,” you say, thumping your elbows on the table and glaring at the Caroller, “this is the part where you tell me exactly how I got here and exactly how to get home.”

Ugh, her smile is irritating. “How you got here – I summoned you. How to get home – I send you home. Not much more to it than that. And I suppose this is the part where you say, ‘this is the part where you send me home. Like, now.’ Well, I’ll consider it, if you agree to a few terms.”

“Uh-huh. I’m not going to bow down in worship to Christmas, if that’s what you want.”

“You are very predictable, you know.” She plucks a tiny detail brush from her stash, and starts adding highlights to her ornaments’ antlers. “I have reasons for dragging people like you through all of this. I hope you don’t mind if I monologue, but you really don’t have a say in the matter. The Christmas I turned seven – my birthday is the same day as Christmas – I learned that Santa isn’t real.”

You roll your eyes and sigh.

“Yes, yes, shut up. The following months were the most cynical and depressing months of my life. My love of the entire holiday, of my birthday, and thus of my very existence disintegrated in one horrible instant. It wasn’t until I was eight and a half that I even considered smiling again, let alone eating peppermint-flavored anything.”

“Point being?”

“Point being, I know what it is to live without the joy of Christmas in my heart, to not jingle at the sound of sleigh bells. That is no life at all. Your life is no life at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your life is nothing but an exercise in cynical self-deceit and a willful rejection of all that makes air worth breathing. And it is my duty—”

“EXCUSE ME?” 

“Predictable and redundant. What a joy you are, my dear. Anyway, when the holiday spirit once again came upon me, ridding me of all the hate I’d held in my heart so long, I discovered my true purpose in this universe. My mission is a gift from the spirit of Joy itself, to bring other lost souls into the glow.”

“Hence the kidnapping and ongoing torment?”

“Yes. Some are so sullied that they must be cleansed by fire.”

“If anything’s going to be cleansed by fire, it’s going to be this building when I commit arson because you are deeply aggravating.” 

“Not the worst threat I’ve ever received.”

“You’ll get more if you don’t tell me how to get out of this place.”

She shook her head with an amused smile. “I already know your answer, but for formality’s sake – do you or do you not accept my kindly invitation to adore Christmastide all the year long?”

“Nope, get me out of here.”

“Mm. Guards!”

Your face feels quite warm by this point. In a fit of some negative emotion you don't care to analyze, you move to punch her in the face. She bats your hand away and boops your nose. Your hands are pinned behind you. The guards shove you towards a side door and down a flight of stairs. The Caroller’s voice echoes behind, “Let me know when you change your mind. I’ll make you fudge!”

The opposite side of the building looks out on an open green space, with a large pond in the middle, and stables and livestock pens off to the right. Open to all of this is a set of cells, backed with stone walls and separated from all the rest by only metal bars. You’re pushed onto a cot. The guards shackle you, one on each ankle, one on each wrist, and a larger ring around your neck. Five golden rings. 

Oh, come on, this is practically medieval! But worse by a significant margin. 

Alas. You’re going nowhere soon. 

To be continued....

A Holiday Puzzle Just for You!

Last month's answer key (non-exhaustive):